Editor’s note: Traveling to the New Orleans Investment Conference today, Porter has turned today’s Journal over to Martin Fridson, chief analyst for Porter & Co.’s Distressed Investing.

Disappointment at getting my conference presentation postponed quickly turned to relief when a drug-company founder whose business model I was endorsing was arrested for securities fraud… Let me explain myself here.

In 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals became a focal point of complaints about prescription drug prices. Founded by U.S. investor Martin Shkreli, Turing bought the manufacturing license for antiparasitic drug Daraprim, then jacked up the price to insurance companies from $13.50 per pill to $750. The UK’s BBC News said Shkreli had consequently become “the most hated man in America.” France’s Le Figaro went further, calling him the most hated man in the world.

Then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton grabbed the opportunity to present herself as the defender of everyday Americans against a villain from central casting. As she framed it, the key issue was Turing’s unjust acquisition of the rights to old drugs while it spent little on research and development (“R&D”). Drug companies shouldn’t make billions on drugs, she said, unless they were reinvesting a big chunk of profits to discover new ones that would benefit humankind.